Successful Uganda Farmer Earns 8M per Month From Piggery Unit alone

At a glance, Dr. Emma Naluyima looks like any elite Ugandan woman, but on her farm in Bwerenga, off Entebbe Road in Wakiso district, she is every inch a worker at the farm. But that is until she starts talking about her passion — farming. By any standards, Naluyima or ‘Maama Pig’ as she was nicknamed because of her passion for pigs is a wealthy farmer. And yet, amazingly, she is not using more than two acres for both her fairly imposing residence and her farm enterprises. In fact, most of the enterprises sit on just one acre. Although she runs a veterinary clinic, Animal Care Centre in Entebbe, farming is her main source of income. Naluyima was born in 1979 in Entebbe.

She went to Stella Maris Primary School, Nsuube, Mary Hill- Mbarara and Makerere University for a veterinary medicine degree and later a master’s in public health. She is married to Washington Mugerwa and the two have a set of twins.

Using very little space innovation

Naluyima and her husband have 30 breeding pigs that give birth to at least 720 piglets a year, several fish ponds done under ‘green house fi sh farming’ with a capacity to accommodate at least 6,000 fi sh, a wellmaintained banana plantation and two greenhouses of 15ft x 8ft in which they grow vegetables.

They also have a well looked after dairy cow and a hydroponic fodder making machine — all on one acre of land. From these, she earns a fortune! “We are doing everything intensively, rather than extensively. We have adopted significant levels of technology to maximise the gains from this small piece of land,” she says.

The farm has only one permanent worker. The rest of the work is done by Naluyima, who wakes up at 4:00am, and a few casual workers who come in as need arises.

How she started

Naluyima is practising what she learnt at school. “I graduated in 2004 and worked with the government animal genetics centre in Entebbe,” she says. It was while there that she realised the need for good quality animal breeds.

She thought of starting a piggery and fi sh farming project. Naluyima started saving for the dream. She soon raised money to acquire land in Bwerenga to start off the project. “I had acquired land near the lake for the fi sh project. However, I was told I could farm fish in a swamp. I then decided to do piggery there,” she says.

The piggery project

In 2010, Naluyima started with five pigs – four female and one male. All of them were of the Camborough breed. “I looked after them well because I realised that was the only way to get money out of them,” she says.

The pigs did not disappoint. The breed she rears delivers an average 12 piglets, twice a year. And soon, she had many piglets for sale. The number of female breeders multiplied to the current 30 and fi ve males. Since each of these sows delivers 24 piglets every year, Naluyima gets 720 piglets in a year. To maintain the quality, she is now importing the mother breeders from South Africa.

“It sounds expensive, but the quality of pigs makes it cheap. Remember, cheap is expensive and expensive is cheap,” Naluyima explains. “I sell a two-month-old piglet at sh200,000 and a three-month-old piglet at sh250,000,” she says. Asked whether this was not on the high end, she explained that the quality of the breeds she rears is high. “People who buy them come back for more. I do not think they would have returned if it was not value for money,” she says. Last year and early this year, she used to sell at least 40 piglets every month.

At an average sh200,000 each, she earned sh8m monthly from the pigs alone. Naluyima’s piggery has got a ‘modern’ labour ward for the sows to deliver the piglets. “Every piglet matters, that is why I have invested in this system,” she says. Each suite costs sh900,000. However, Naluyima says this is cheap compared to the benefi ts. “I sell a piglet at sh250,000, so each of them matters a lot. Therefore, losing it at birth means losing sh250,000,” she says. The suites also prevent sows from cannibalising the piglets since the piglet is out of reach upon birth.


The ‘greenhouse’ fish

Inaddition to the pigs, Naluyima set up a highly innovative fish farming project. She farms fish in a greenhouse. She is one of few farmers in Uganda with such a system. She used sh3.5m to set up the greenhouse structure. She then used mainly local material to set up six 8ft x 8ft ponds. Each of these ponds cost sh400,000.

The ponds are lined with a special polythene sheet that retains the water. The liners are imported from Kenya. Each of these ponds can take at least 1,200 catfi sh or 1,000 tilapia, which adds up to 6,000 fish under the greenhouse. “It has many advantages compared to open fish farming,” she says. For example, the fish are not attacked by predators and harvesting can be done by just one person.“There is also controlled, but effective feeding, which is why the fi sh develop faster,” she says. In six months, fi sh from her greenhouse weigh a kilogramme.

On maturity, she sells each kilogramme at sh12,000, which means that with 6,000 fi sh grown in eight weeks, she collects sh72m from the ponds a year.

Banana shamba

Naluyima’s banana shamba sits on a quarter an acre and has over 100 stems. It has just started flowering. However, the innovation that she uses makes the banana shamba stand out. While most farmers mulch their shambas to retain moisture, she uses mulching bags, fi lled with compost manure. The bags are placed between the rows of bananas.“We pour water on these mulching bags, then the plants sip the nutrients from here,” she says.

Greenhouses

The farm has also got two greenhouses in which Naluyima grows vegetables. She got the materials at about sh9m each. In one of the structures she grows tomatoes, while the other has got sweet pepper. “Every week, I harvest 200kg of tomatoes from the greenhouse,” she says. With each kilogramme going for sh2,000, that is sh400,000 every week from the tomatoes. The harvesting goes on for seven to eight months, which comes to about sh12.8m in eight months. “I was able to recoup the cost of the greenhouse from one harvest and even made a profi t,” she says. And yet, the structure can be used for so many years. She says if one, for example, takes a loan to construct the greenhouse, the loan can be repaid in just a year Greenhouses

The farm has also got two greenhouses in which Naluyima grows vegetables. She got the materials at about sh9m each. In one of the structures she grows tomatoes, while the other has got sweet pepper. “Every week, I harvest 200kg of tomatoes from the greenhouse,” she says. With each kilogramme going for sh2,000, that is sh400,000 every week from the tomatoes. The harvesting goes on for seven to eight months, which comes to about sh12.8m in eight months. “I was able to recoup the cost of the greenhouse from one harvest and even made a profi t,” she says. And yet, the structure can be used for so many years. She says if one, for example, takes a loan to construct the greenhouse, the loan can be repaid in just a year.

The New Vision Newspaper
21-Jan-2014